Photos and more...

It intrigues me, when you see police procedural movies or series on TV, how often they use large photographs as part of their investigations, the sort of large photographs that you hardly see anywhere else these days, especially since the advent of digital cameras and the ability to be able to view photos on your computer or mobile or iPad.

Once upon a time it took days to get prints back from your negatives, and then we got to a stage of overnight prints, and then it was down to half an hour, and so on. Now, of course, we can have a photo we've shot on the iPad or computer within seconds.  Okay, it's not hard copy, but for the most part we don't need hard copies of photographs.  Think of all the thousands of printed photos that are stored away in cupboards and on shelves and in attics.  Of interest to archivists maybe, but not very much to those who are moving on with their lives. 

Occasionally we'll have a big sort-out of photos, and in one recent purge, we gave photos away to our adult children.  In most cases there was some sort of sentimental value attached to the photo.  But many photos taken in the past have little sentimental value: they're just a shot of something or other (sometimes not even identifiable) or someone (often someone whose name we've forgotten). 

Endemic's Roxburgh studio

Going beyond the family photos and coming back to the big photos, my wife and I went to see an exhibition yesterday put on by a couple who call themselves collectively Endemic, and who singly are a painter, Rebecca Gilmore, and a photographer, Greg Slui.  They live in Roxburgh, and had brought down a wide range of their prints (and some originals) to a display at the Hotel St Clair.   It was well worth paying a visit, even though the prices were out of our current (pensioner) range.  There were certainly some photos and paintings we would have liked a copy of if we'd had some cash: some of Slui's photos are wonderfully evocative, occasionally simple to the point of abstract, but in general very pleasing.  There was a marvellous shot of a bunch of boulders at Moeraki that particularly appealed to me. 

Gilmore paints in great detail, often with birds as a focus.  Some of these paintings were a delight, but the one that caught our eye consisted of nothing but beach or river stones in all their amazing variety.  Beautifully done.

The Chart Room at the Hotel St Clair is a good spot for an artist: plenty of foot traffic, the sea rolling in just across the road, the far horizon, an overcast sky (yesterday, when we went, but it had been bright earlier on), and an evocative atmosphere. 

Book sale

You have to be hard-hearted when you're getting rid of books.  In our book sale today we've sold all the Dr Who titles we had - over a hundred of them.  They weren't a problem sentimental-wise, because they belonged originally to my son and we had no attachment to them.  But seeing some other books go out at 50c which were books that you once loved, is a little different....!  On the other hand we've also sold a lot of books that we've never loved particularly: they've just managed to find their way onto our shelves and take up space.  There's something about books; no matter how hard you try to get rid of them, new ones call out for a place in your house.

The sale was listed to start at 8 am, though we expected we might get a few early birds.  However, the really early bird arrived at 6.20, and my daughter, from her upstairs window, told them to come back no earlier than 7.30.  I think the Dr Who were the drawcard.   At 6.20 we weren't even up.  Having something like this going on at your house means you don't sleep well anyway (it's like having to get up early to catch a plane) and both of us had had a disturbed night.  Plus the dog decided to do a funny coughing thing about 4 am, and wouldn't settle.  Most unusual.  Maybe he was concerned as to how many people he was going to have to bark at during the morning.

Anyway we had someone else (a dealer) come just around seven and thought we might as well get on with it. Another couple of guys - also dealers - arrived with a great whiz and a bang ten minutes later, barging into the house as though we'd better not stop them or else!  Strange way to come into someone's home. 

Subsequent customers have been much more polite, and we've had some interesting conversations, and have caught up with some people we haven't seen for a while.  We've cleared around 180 books this morning, but there are still some twenty boxes sitting there, though they're not so tightly packed as they were.  Well, we'll see what the rest of the day brings.  At the moment there's a bit of a lull...

Two rants and a statement

I love Joe Quinnan's rant on change: Books, I think, are dead. You cannot fight the zeitgeist and you cannot fight corporations. The genius of corporations is that they force you to make decisions about how you will live your life and then beguile you into thinking that it was all your choice. Compact discs are not superior to vinyl. E-readers are not superior to books. Lite beer is not the great leap forward. A society that replaces seven-tier wedding cakes with lo-fat cupcakes is a society that deserves to be put to the sword. But you can’t fight City Hall. I also believe that everything that happens to you as you grow older makes it easier to die, because the world you once lived in, and presumably loved, is gone. 

Some of it is hyperbole, but there's an element of truth in it all.  Corporations - but even more so, governments - have a great tendency to change things for the sake of change, and certainly without consultation.  And how much battling can you do in life, especially when the things being changed aren't really hugely important in eternal terms? 

And here's another delightful rant: Charlie Brooker writing an article in which he claims he's going to strangle everyone on the planet...

And for the sake of transparency, in case the powers-that-be are reading: this is categorically not a joke. I am 100% serious. Even though I don't know who you are or where you live, I am going to strangle you, your family, your pets, your friends, your imaginary friends, and any lifelike human dummies with haunted stares and wipe-clean vinyl orifices you've got knocking around, perhaps in a secret compartment under the stairs. The only people who might escape my wrath are the staff and passengers at Sheffield's Robin Hood airport, because they've been granted immunity by the state.

I love that phrase: lifelike human dummies with haunted stares and wipe-clean vinyl orifices.  It's a beautiful piece of writing, even if it's nonsense. 

Which brings me to cheap vinyl banners, which are described by their makers as built to stand up to the elements, though they do wear with time.  Isn't there something slightly awry about that statement?  Obviously we want them to stand up to the elements, but in spite of being cheap, we also want them to last forever.  That's the way consumers think about material goods: cheap, and permanent.  Unfortunately, manufacturers tend to think cheap, and replaceable after a very short period, like two years at the outside.  Otherwise we might be out of business.

Clearing and rediscovering books

As a result of our big book clearance - we're selling off or giving away hundreds of books (it's the bravest thing we've done on the book front for decades) - I've decided to read more of the books I've still got on the shelves, rather than keep on getting new ones from the library, or elsewhere.  Even with the big clear-out we're still loaded with books (and that's not including the ones that we're keeping hold of for the shop I used to work for, which has since closed down).   I remember reading about a woman - Susan Hill - who decided to read nothing but the books she had on her shelves for a year.  (Ironically, she turned her year of reading her own books into yet another book.)  She placed an embargo on buying new books or borrowing them, and spent the year rediscovering her own library.  I can't say I've placed an embargo on buying or borrowing anything else, but at least the clear-out has given me the chance to take up some of my unread, or long-since read, books. 

For instance, I've read two of the Dorothy L Sayers' murder mysteries, featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.  I've had most of the titles in this series for years, but curiously enough had never read the first two: Whose Body? and Clouds of Witness. These intricately plotted books are a joy - even if you think that Sayers cheats just a little in how she plans the thing out.  They're a joy because the characters are such fun, the wit in the writing is a delight, and the inclusion of innumerable quotations - either clearly remembered by Sayers, or half-remembered and mangled by some of her characters - adds to the enjoyment.  (Check out the Dowager Duchess getting herself thoroughly tangled, or Lord Peter in full flight, Parker, the detective, talking about biblical commentaries.)

From there I've moved to another book I've never read, even though I've had it forever.  It's Henry James' The Bostonians.  I read Portrait of a Lady a number of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it (and was later disgusted at the mess and muddle New Zealand's Jane Campion made of the film version.) The detailed writing seemed to dig deeper and deeper into the characters' lives, and the dialogue was splendidly written, with each speech twisting and turning the story. 

The Bostonians is different, though not in the style of writing, of course.  There seems to be less dialogue  - at least so far (I'm up to about 70 pages) - but each character is brilliantly dissected, and alongside that is the wit that James allows himself at times - I'd forgotten about that.  It's subtle, but it's certainly there.  It's extraordinary how he manages to keep us interested while unravelling yard after yard of the characters' inner lives, or how one line of dialogue can lead to a page or two of dissection.  No doubt it's not everyone's taste, but I'm enjoying it.  You can't read speedily, as you can with the Sayers' books.  Miss a phrase, or even a word, and you have to go back because you find you've missed how that word connects into what comes next.  I'll report more on it when I've finished it.

Costa this and Costa that

I'd thought the name Costa del Mar referred to place.  I think I was confusing it was with Costa del Sol, which I presume means the Sun Coast.   Costa del Mar means Sea Coast, which, when you think about it, is a bit of a tautology: surely a coast is usually only on the sea?  The first dictionary definition I found on the Net certainly defines it that way: Land next to the sea; the seashore.  Although it does mention that once upon a time the word was used for a border or frontier.  I doubt that anyone in English uses it that way anymore. 

Costa del Mar, which has its own Wikipedia page (and a comment from Wikipedia saying that the entry looks suspiciously like advertising...!) is actually a brand name.  I guess it's well known in the States - its headquarters are in Daytona Beach - but I've never heard of it.  Of course, I don't buy brand name sunglasses either, so that could be another reason.   Oh, the perils of not being brand-name-focused! There's so much you miss out on...

While checking out Costa del Sol, I came across this strange headline: Costa del Sol fire victims still left out in the cold after half a year of waiting.  Doesn't this have an air of the paronomasiac about it? (A pun, in other words).  Perhaps it was intentional; perhaps, on the other hand, the sub-editor had one of the flashes of language in which words just come together in a slightly surreal way, and he or she never noticed.  

And to hive of the subject we started with, talking of interesting words, yesterday I came across one and then was introduced to another this morning.  Yesterday's was Tchotchkes, which refers to those gifts you give people which aren't of any real value but you have to give them something.  There's a whole industry out there producing this kind of stuff.  When I worked in the book shop, my boss used to call these sorts of things, 'tinky-tonk' which is another delightful name.  Curiously, I'd thought this was original to her, but I should have known better.  Check out tinky-tonk on Google and you'll find it everywhere.  

The other word, which a friend introduced me to this morning, is febrifugal, which means mitigating or curing a fever. Or to put it another way, a way that doesn't explain anything: febrifugal is something that acts as a febrifuge.  Oh, the words just get more delightful as we go!

It's quite difficult to find febrifugal used in a sentence, but here's one: The common camomile, A. nobilis, is used as a popular remedy. Its flowers have a strong and fragrant and a bitter, aromatic taste. They are tonic, febrifugal, and in large doses emetic, and the volatile oil is carminative. Hmm.  A sentence that also expects you know 'emetic' and 'carminative'.  

Well, we've strayed a bit from Costa del anything...never mind, the fun of writing blog posts is that there are no restrictions on how far you can stray.  

The great 119th

Over the years I've made several attempts to memorise that Psalm of Psalms, Number 119.  All have seemed doomed to failure, for various reasons. Firstly, it's the longest, but that shouldn't necessarily be an issue - I've been able to memorise poems and scripture that in sum are much longer, and in some cases more complex.  It's repetitive and uses the same words and ideas over and over in various ways.  It doesn't easily stick because the links between the statements (each verse being an independent statement) are few, and on only some occasions are there connections that help the memory process.

At present I'm working my way through the notes that Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, provided in his book, The Treasury of David.  He also included, alongside his own notes, the commentaries of other divines, preachers and teachers - and the occasional explorer.  These notes are often illuminating, and it's surprising how much variance these writers can get out of what appears to be a psalm that winds around the same points like a labyrinth. 

Anyway I decided, while working slowly through these notes (often only a verse's worth a day) that I'd have another go at memorising the psalm.  My attempts in the past have involved number system approaches and other tricks of keeping stuff in the head, but this time I'm just working one step at a time, one verse (roughly) a day, using various mnemonics and other memory tricks, and I'm hoping that I'll have the intestinal fortitude to complete the task. 

I have some predecessors in the job.   Spurgeon notes:  Our best improvement of this sacred composition will come through getting our minds into intense sympathy with its subject. In order to this, we might do well to commit it to memory. Philip Henry's daughter wrote in her diary, "I have of late taken some pains to learn by heart Psalms 119:1-176, and have made some progress therein." She was a sensible, godly woman. Having done this, we should consider the fulness, certainty, clearness, and sweetness of the word of God, since by such reflections we are likely to be stirred up to a warm affection for it.

William Alexander, in "The Witness of the Psalms", written in 1877 notes that 'In the midst of a London season; in the stir and turmoil of a political crisis, 1819, William Wilberforce writes in his Diary— "Walked from Hyde Park Corner repeating the 119th Psalm in great comfort"'. 

 

Ruskin

Ruskin, who was a man often at odds with the religious views of his day, wrote: It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was to my child's mind most repulsive— the 119th Psalm— has now become of all the most precious to me in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the law of God. 

 

I've now got the first eight verses under my belt, and have to keep tightening my belt to keep them there.  They have a great habit of straying.  Nevertheless, I persevere.  Some 168 days (or more) down the track I may have the whole thing by heart...

Zabaglione

Back in 1974, we held our wedding 'breakfast' in our upstairs flat in Tooting Bec, London.  We didn't have enough cash to have a 'do' at any place more formal.  It was a great party and all those who went - and who we're still in touch with - remember it fondly.

I only found out recently that the day after the wedding, by which time, of course, my wife and I had left for our honeymoon (in Rome - we got a wonderful cheap holiday package) - a number of the guests had gone to my best man's house for another get-together.  Mike, the best man, had made six or seven pavlovas for the wedding breakfast, and they had been transported - very slowly - across London.  So slowly in fact, that he was late for the wedding ceremony!

But when you make several pavlovas you're left with a great number of egg yolks.  Mike turned these into a particular dish whose name now escapes me - it sounds like Zambezi, but isn't.  Ah, yes, I remember now, it's Zabaglione.  Zabaglione is, as you'd guess, an Italian dessert made with egg yolks, sugar and wine.  It's often served with strawberries, or one of the other sweet berry families (the one in the picture is au natural).  Of course, Mike could have turned the yolks into Advocaat or Eggnog, Rompope, or the wonderfully-named Kogel mogel.  I had to use up several egg yolks a while ago and made these lovely flat (and probably fat-making) biscuits that lasted me two or three weeks.  They were crunchy, almost like hokey-pokey.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if I remember what the name of the recipe is now.  I'll have to check.  My wife made a pavlova for my daughter-in-law's birthday last weekend.  It just occurs to me that I haven't asked her what happened to the yolks.

Anyway, I wasn't going to talk about all that but about something else that happened at the wedding breakfast.  We went to open the wine...no corkscrew.  Nothing.   (Not even any Sinf custom bottle openers.)  Someone popped out - it may have been the inimitable Mike - and bought a marvellous device that you poke right into the cork - it's has a thick needle at one end.  Once it's in, you pump the rest of the device up and down and suddenly the cork pops out.  Air is pumped through the needle apparently. 

What's even better is that we still have this bottle opener, getting on for forty years later.  We don't use it often, since we don't drink a lot of wine, but it's still serving its purpose after all this time.

Archives online

Over on one of my other blogs, I've been posting letters that I sent home from the UK in 1968/9, when I went to the London Opera Centre to study for a year in the repetiteurs' class.  The letters cover all manner of things: my relationship with my flatmate, friends and relatives I knew and visited and went out with, shows I went to see (particularly operas: we used to get in free) and movies, and just how life was in that particular time.  I thought the letters might interest one or two people, but in fact I've heard from several people who've been reading them - though not, so far, my old flatmate! 

I've added notes where appropriate, in some case to clarify who or what I'm talking about, and in some cases I've added links to the places or people I've mentioned. 

It's kind of like having archives online.

Sieve

William Gouge once wrote about verse 13 of Psalm 106: As it is with a sieve or boulter, the good corn and fine flour goes through, but the light chaff and coarse bran remains behind; or as a strainer, that the sweet liquor is strained out, but the dregs are left behind: or as a grate, that lets the pure water run away, but if there be any straws, sticks, mud, or filth, that it holds. Thus it is with most men's memories; by nature they are but, as it were, pertusa dolia, mere river tubs, especially in good things very treacherous, so that the vain conceits of men are apt to be held in, when divine instructions and gracious promises run through; trifles and toys, and worldly things, they are apt to remember, tenacious enough; but for spiritual things they leak out; like Israel, they soon forget them. 

Apart from the Latin phrase, pertusa dolia, which Gouge translates as 'mere river tubs', what other word is unusual in this extract?  It's the word, 'boulter' which I can't say I've ever come across before. Plainly it's a word meaning some form of sieve, and the phrase, boulter-cloth, appears in a some places in an old recipe book, The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened.  It seems to mean a cloth that you squeeze juices through, as we strain blackcurrant juice through a muslin cloth, sometimes. 

While I might not have met with a 'boulter' before (at least not by that name) I thought I knew what a sieve was.  But when I went to check out one site I discovered that there are sieves used for scientific work that are nothing like the affordable sieves I use at home with cooking or baking.  These ones are expensive models that use metal mesh on several different levels (like a kind of tower) through which various materials are gradually sifted.  They're often called 'test sieve shakers' because they're shaken electrically (presumably at high speeds) and do the work in a short time that would take a scientist days.  As you can see from the picture, they're rather more intricate than the average household model...

Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

We went to see the movie Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away recently, in 3D.  I haven't had much experienceof the new style 3D, so far, apart from seeing Alice in Wonderland in the format more than a year ago.  That particular movie didn't grab me enough to make me want to feel that I needed to see things in 3D for the sake of it, but we couldn't see Cirque du Soleil conveniently in 2D, so we opted for the only other choice. 

It turned out to be the right decision.  I suspect that some films are made in 3D for the sake of it, and some are planned that way.  Worlds Away gives the impression of being planned for the 3D format, and is all the better for it.  There's a depth to the visuals that allows things to be going on in a number of places at once and still be visible (although this being typically Cirque du Soleil, there are always random happenings going on that you only just catch).  Two or three times a person is caught right at the front of the shot, almost in silhouette, and that didn't seem to work (you wondered if an audience member had just stood up) but otherwise everything has a marvellous clarity. 

The film is a compilation, basically, that tries to be a unity by having a very basic story running through.  However the story is so thin, that it hardly holds the thing together.  A small town girl goes to a circus, sees (only for a moment) a man working at putting up the tent, falls in love with him (apparently), discovers that he's the Airealist in the circus, and distracts him while he's performing. He plunges to the floor, except the floor proves to be sand and gives way beneath him and he vanishes.  She jumps in after him and finds herself.  Well, who knows where she finds herself - perhaps inside the Cirque du Soleil.  Only there are seven separate circuses in this movie (all of them running in Las Vegas at the time the movie was made), and some of their best acts are shown (there are also some rather brief random acts, which don't seem to fit with anything).  The Airealist is captured by some bodies (who knows who) and the girl keeps on searching, until finally they're reunited.  (Who knows how?)

So irrelevant is all this to what you see on the screen that it barely matters.  What matters is the Circus, and the artists, and the design, and the fantastic stage props and machinery, and the costumes, and the utter artistry of these performers.  Yes, I know Cirque du Soleil has become the household name for all that's top class in circuses, so you expect the best, but even so, they are always full of surprises.  The acts performed in and around the huge pool are wonderful; the marvellous superheroes piece on an assortment of trampolines set up like a huge skateboard park are high energy to the max; the 'fight' on the tilted floor between two groups of acrobats on wires is superbly timed, and perhaps only outdone by the other battle on the same floor (this time vertical) in which the acrobats race up and around and down and through a series of poles sticking out of the floor, with nothing to hold them onto to what amounts to a wall; several of them 'die' with horrendous screams by falling off it- who knows what happens to them, any more than the artists who drop into the water from trapezes and other hanging devices early in the piece. 

There's also the exhausting 'boat' that's slung way up in the air and has at least a dozen trapeze artists and strongmen on it: it's constantly on the move, like a giant swing, and the airealists are flung about from either end like rag dolls that suddenly turn out to have muscles and strength once they're back on board again. 

I love circuses - poor little circuses with barely any money to rub together (Circus Aotearoa, for instance) or the noisy Zirka Circus - but I love Cirque du Soleil most of all, even though I've only seen it once live - and that was in very confined quarters as far as the circus was concerned, on the stage of the Regent Theatre.  I've seen a number of presentations of Cirque du Soleil on TV, including documentaries and such.  I just marvel at the attention to detail, the atmosphere, the innovativeness and much more. 

This movie may not do much more than capture some of the best acts on film, but it does it exceptionally well, and that's all I need to say.

Rehabilitated

Rehabilitation after drug abuse isn't something I've had much experience with, so I probably won't need to make use of drug rehab California-style.  With that in mind, I've decided to take another trip through my clippings and see what other people have to say about rehab.  Here's just a small sample. 

Firstly, in an article in which David Orr puzzles over the idea of Spring Fashion Modelled by Rising Young Poets, he also considers: the actual experience of reading a poem. Not why poems are good at rehabilitating people. Not where poems come from. Not what they can help us do, or forget, or remember. Not what the people who write them are wearing. Just what reading one of them is like to one person. 

In an article entitled Salon's guide to writing memoirs, Avi Steinberg notes that you should first "give therapy a shot" and that Stories based on facts are more interesting and truthful and beautiful when placed within a prism of facts. Be a student of your subject. If you’re writing about an experience in a sober house, learn the history of rehab, the history of the specific sober house in which you lived, the chemical composition of benzodiazepine, etc. Everything has a history. Your personal story always intersects with larger subjects...

Václav Havel writes in a piece called Words on Words how even words need to be rehabilitated: 

For forty years now I have read [the word, peace] on the front of every building and in every shop window in my country. For forty years, an allergy to that beautiful word has been engendered in me as in every one of my fellow citizens because I know what the word has meant here for the past forty years: ever mightier armies ostensibly to defend peace.

In spite of that lengthy process of systematically divesting the word “peace” of all meaning—worse than that, investing it instead with quite the opposite meaning to that given in the dictionary—a number of Don Quixotes in Charter 77 and several of their younger colleagues in the Independent Peace Association have managed to rehabilitate the word and restore its original meaning. Naturally, though, they had to pay a price for their “semantic perestroika”—i.e., standing the word “peace” back on its feet again: almost all the youngsters who fronted the Independent Peace Association were obliged to spend a few months inside for their pains. It was worth it, though.

 

Book clearance

We've been having a major clear-out of books from our house.  We're planning on having a garage sale in a week or so,to see if we can sell some of them then; otherwise we'll take them down to the Regent. 

When I say, 'major' I mean huge.  We've taken down one set of shelves completely - these ones hung on the wall, and were one of the first set of book shelves we put up in the house.  We've no further use for another set of shelves - at least not for books.  And we have space on two other sets of shelves in case we happen to acquire any more books.   Hopefully, with a large number of them moving on, we won't find that they've been breeding overnight to such an extent as seems to have been the case in the past.

Of course there have been some finds: books we'd forgotten about; envelopes with old letters, or aerograms that have been used as bookmarks; postcards, greetings cards, and more.  Some of them no longer have any relevance, but one or two have been real rediscoveries.   

It's quite a task to clear out books you've had for decades - you grow attached to the sight of them round the house, even if you don't actually ever read them again.  A few of them I'm sorry to see go (especially those I bought at some expense and which turned out to be duds!), but for the most part we've been able to throw out multitudes of books without too much qualm.  The house is already feeling a good deal lighter - in weight.

So what kind of books are they?  Well, there are a heap of novels; a heap of history books (my son left these behind when he went to the States) on a wide range of subjects; a boxful of Dr Who stories (same son left these behind), a bunch of Christian books that have become surplus to my requirements; and innumerable non-fiction titles that we just don't need to keep giving a home.

The books are going to go out at very reasonable prices, so if you like books, it may be worth your while checking them out! (Incidentally, they're not all decades old: there are a number of quite new books, - a few in pristine condition - that we just don't want).  

Bird Launching

I never knew that there was such a thing as a bird launcher for those who shoot birds for sport.   I've seen those machines that send clay discs into the air, of course, because they often appear in the movies or on TV.  Downton Abbey is probably the most recent example. 

But a bird launcher, such as the Zinger Winger? Seemingly you load up the bird launcher with a creature such as a quail, pigion, pheasant or duck, and then, using a remote, you can lose the trap door and the bird flies out.  Supposedly this is so you can train your pointing or flushing dog, but surely it's also to train you, yourself, to shoot the aforesaid bird.  There are even springs that give the bird a boost out of the trap.  

Forget employing 'beaters' to beat the creatures out of their natural habitats.  This is the new, improved method.  Though nowhere that I can see does it mention where you find your birds to fill the traps.  Maybe there's a place for beaters after all?

Not living in the ghetto

Here's an interesting paragraph from a book by Bill Strickland called Make the Impossible Possible.
I don't know a lot about the book, except that it's motivational in style, and has the subtitle: One man's crusade to inspire others to dream bigger and achieve the extraordinary, which should give you an idea of its content.

One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary - See more at: http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780385520553?&PID=25646#sthash.aq2dCOLD.dpuf

One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary - See more at: http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780385520553?&PID=25646#sthash.aq2dCOLD.dpuf

One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary - See more at: http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780385520553?&PID=25646#sthash.aq2dCOLD.dpuf

 

One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary - See more at: http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780385520553?&PID=25646#sthash.aq2dCOLD.dpuf

I rarely tried to imagine what it might be like to live in other neighbourhoods. I couldn't imagine any place, in fact, besides Manchester and the ghetto that surrounded me. That myopic worldview never worried me when I was young. I simply didn't know any different. But now I know I had fallen for the deadliest lie the ghetto uses to shrink your soul - that your world is the whole world; that your future, and all the sorry possibilities life will ever offer you, are already right before your eyes.

Incidentally, the Manchester he's talking about here is in the States, not the UK.